As if it wasn’t enough that the NSA paid RSA $10 million to adopt an algorithm that wasn’t entirely secure, researchers have now demonstrated that they can break even RSA 4096 bit encryption with little more than a few emails and a microphone. And that microphone can indeed just be one in a smartphone sitting on the desk.

Researchers from Tel Aviv University and the Weizmann Institute of Science discovered that they could steal even the largest, most secure RSA 4,096-bit encryption keys simply by listening to a laptop as it decrypts data.

To accomplish the trick, the researchers used a microphone to record the noises made by the computer, then ran that audio through filters to isolate the vibrations made by the electronic internals during the decryption process. With that accomplished, some cryptanalysis revealed the encryption key in around an hour.

Well, no, pace Engadget it is a little more complex than that. You can’t just listen to a computer and break the algos just like that.

Among those remaining in power are LtGen Keith Alexander, USA, who covered up and destroyed the ABLE DANGER discovery of two of the 9-11 terrorists prior to 9-11, rather than share them with the FBI. This is the same person who wants $12 billion dollars to achieve cyber-security, but who will actually use that money to assure digital nakedness for every single person, thing, and datum. I do not trust him.

I share with Jim Bamford, the foremost chronicler of NSA’s gifted past, enormous disdain for the manner in which NSA under Generals Mike Hayden and Keith Alexander have become living atrocities. Good people trapped in a bad system, a system that is now deeply unethical, unconstitutional, and largely worthless.

NSA has not prevented any terrorist attacks. NSA processes less than 5% of what is collects. NSA is so stupid at the management level that they built a data center in Utah — a water-stressed state — requiring 1.7 million gallons of clean water every single day.

For over 20 years a handful of us have sought to draw attention to the grotesque disconnect between what we pay for secret intelligence, and the real world. I dare to hope that this debacle will put the conversation in the forefront when Congress comes back from its recess. Congress should be asking itself three questions:

1. Is NSA’s debacle the tipping point for an angry populism that destroys the two-party tyranny?

2. Is this the year that we are forced to stop borrowing one trillion a year to pay for the 50% of the US Government budget that is outright pork?

3. Is this the year I get fired for being stupid, unethical, and divorced from my constituents?